NEW DELHI– India’s apex court Friday deferred the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi (Mosque-Temple dispute of Ayodhya) case and said a bench would decide on Jan 10 when to take up the case, officials said.

“Further orders will be passed by an appropriate bench on Jan 10 for fixing the date to hear the matter,” a bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice SK Kaul said while hearing the matter.

According to Xinhua news agency, the court’s decision comes in the wake of growing demands that the Ram temple be constructed at the site where the 16th-century Babri mosque stood before it was razed by Hindu zealots in 1992.

Some members of ruling Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP), right-wing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and BJP ally Shiv Sena want the Indian Government to bring an ordinance (a special government order) to enable the start of construction well before announcement of the country’s general elections due this year.

RSS is considered as an ideological fountainhead of BJP.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his New Year interview said the government was waiting for a legal resolution.

“Let the judicial process be over. After the judicial process is over, whatever be our responsibility as government, we are ready to make all efforts,” he said.